Sunrise Earth

It is a few days after summer solstice, and the red-necked grebes tend their nest on Beluga Lake in Homer, Alaska. Ground fog drifts past the swimming birds, which are rarely airborne. As the sun appears, the fog lifts.

A tidal lagoon flushes its night load of water under the shadow of the Alaska's Augustine volcano, a perfect cone that last erupted in 1986. This is a land where the earth quakes an average of once every 30 sunrises.

The world's largest population of unhunted brown bears welcome the sunrise in Katmai National Park, Alaska. They begin the morning in the meadow, playfully mating and grazing on the high protein tidal sedge grass.